Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
(Ephesians 6:9.) The Church's relation to Christ, in His everlasting purpose, is the archetype of the three greatest earthly relations-husband and wife (Ephesians 5:22-33), parent and child (Ephesians 6:1-4), master and servant (Ephesians 6:4-9). B and all Jerome's Greek manuscripts omit "submit yourselves:" supplying it from Ephesians 5:21, 'Ye wives (submitting yourselves) unto your own [idiois implying the legitimacy, John 4:18; exclusiveness, 1 Corinthians 7:2; and specialty of the connection, 1 Corinthians 14:35 (Ellicott)] husbands' 'Aleph (') A, Vulgate, Coptic, read 'Let wives submit themselves' [hupotassesthoosan]. Delta supports "submit yourselves." "Your own" is an argument for submissiveness in wives: it is not a stranger, but your own husbands, whom you are to submit unto (cf. Genesis 3:16; 1 Corinthians 7:2; 1 Corinthians 14:34-35; Colossians 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1-7). Those subject ought to submit themselves, whatever their superiors are. "Submit" is used of wives; "obey" of children (Ephesians 6:1) х hupakouete (G5219)], as there is greater equality between wives and husbands than between children and parents.
As unto the Lord - as unto Christ Himself, whose person the husband represents, the ground of the wife's submission; though that submission is inferior in kind and degree to what she owes Christ (Ephesians 5:24).